Cheers Cast Mailbag 1.2

April 25, 2019

Ryan Daly dives back into Cliffy’s mailbag to respond to listener feedback from episodes 1.13 through 1.22, but before that, returning guest John Trumbull from Atomic Junk Shop stops by to help Ryan review two extremely odd additions to the Cheers canon, one micro episode that appeared before Super Bowl XVII, and another that was produced by the U.S. Treasury Department, but never aired. Then Ryan ranks all twenty-two regular episodes of Cheers season 1.

9 responses to “Cheers Cast Mailbag 1.2”

Seems odd that for a segment meant to run during the biggest sports event of the year, the show chose to focus on Diane, NOT Sam, the former athlete!

That Treasury Bond mini-sode is baffling. You did your best but I don’t think it can be reconciled with Cheers continuity. Did they bring in Bob Haney to write this?

This segment also makes me wonder if MASH ever got roped in to something like this. I have never seen any evidence of such, but as we’ve seen this stuff can disappear down the memory hole. So who knows what might be out there?

I saw the Super Bowl mini-ep when it was aired. They teased it throughout the what did seem like 12 hours of pregame like it was Santa’s Sleigh. “And don’t go anywhere. We’re going to check in with the folks at Cheers later on…”

This was a pretty huge Super Bowl. I had become a pretty big Miami Dolphins fan as a 9 year old who was sick of how terrible the 82-3 Packers were, and was pretty devastated by the game’s result. Which I immediately forgot because immediately afterward was the friggin A-Team

The bonds propaganda episode reminds me of the infamous “Stamp Day for Superman” episode of The Adventures of Superman also created by the Treasury Dept. It’s in the public domain, and used to show up a LOT on those barely legal “Good Times” VHS compilations. And of course, it’s out on YouTube (as well as on the series official DVD sets).

When you said Ralph Phillips had writer credits for one episode of a lot of shows, my first thought was: “the unaired Savings Bond episodes.”

Hey! This may sound all conspiracy theory, but hear me out:
One of the secret perks of working for the Treasury Department is that the employees can submit a line to be said by their favorite TV character, have them assembled into a script, and filmed under the guise of unaired “Public Service Announcements.” Ryan Daly, investigative podcaster, needs to break open the story on this! We especially need to know how many fan ‘shipping scenes are filmed, but not included in the “official” edit!

Just listened To clarify, my comment about releasing one a week was indeed wrapped in praise. Ie, its a superb podcast, and it would be great not to have to wait two weeks until the next one (even at the expense of shorter episodes).

I listen on my walk to work, and often check the podcast/facebook to see if a new one has been released yet. I usually listen to yours and Cheers Weekly. Yours is far more detailed and focused, it would just be good to be able to listen to them more often

I remember watching the Super Bowl short when it aired. That was a lot of fun. Even though Cheer’s ratings hadn’t taken off yet, this might have been a case where NBC saw the show as a good opportunity to give it a boost. But wow, I’d forgotten how little Sam did in this one.

Congrats on finishing Season One, Ryan! Cheers! (as in, “good job”, not the name of the show. … I’ll stop now.)